Made in a Lab
by SeeJaye
Summary: Steve Rogers could take his idealistic views and pretty words and shove them up his down home American butt, Tony Stark was a hero.


Disclaimer: I own nothing and I'm not making any money off of this peice of fiction.

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"The Ironman suit… take that away… and what am I?"

Tony Stark was not someone easily rattled. He had lived through numerous attacks on his person, starting with his dad's negligence, his mom's intolerance, and the media's ignorance; and lasting through his trusted mentor's betrayal, his dad's old buddy's kid's resurgence (and wasn't that a mouthful), and some neglected God's cry for attention.

And then his dad's biggest science experiment had shown up after seventy years wearing a spangly suit a couple sizes too small and had _dared_ to call _him_ out.

"Men with none of it… worth ten of me."

What was he saying, anyway? Weren't the Ironman and Captain America both born in labs? Granted, his lab was a very… rustic cave in the middle of Afghanistan, but neither Tony Stark nor Steve Rogers had started out heroes, now had they? Rogers had been a puny little stick in the mud before Howard Stark had charged him up into a very large stick in the mud, and Tony…

Tony liked to think that he had been perpetually blinded by cameras as a kid.

And okay, so Tony wasn't the ideal hero wannabe like Rogers was with his selfless and charming attitude, and yeah, he was nowhere near the awesome spy-hero-ness of Natasha and Barton who pulled the tortured, mysterious heroes off pretty well, and no, he did not have Banner's humbled, self-sacrifice-for-the-safety-of-the-people thing going on, and come on, Thor was a God, his DNA pretty much forces him to be every little kid's idol, but he was _Tony Stark_, he didn't _have_ to do any of this. He could have given his Ironman designs to the government, pointed his finger at Obadiah Stane, and walked away, living happily ever after with his booze and his toys.

Tony Stark was a billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist. He didn't _have_ to put himself and the people he loved, though few there were, at risk with being Ironman, but he also knew that something inside of him whispered that he would be the best man for the job, and while people may call that selfish of him, saying that he just wanted the glory and the attention while someone else could do a much better job… Tony, the billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist that he was, knew better, because Tony had been raised for this.

No one ever, in any part of the world, would deny that Howard Stark was a genius with technical things, and many people of the world liked to think that be was just as much a genius at being a father, but they were wrong. Howard could teach his son everything about building circuits and making weapons, but when it came to the human side of things Howard Stark was a cold and impersonal man who raised his son in a lab.

Tony grew up knowing that he had only been born to take on the Stark name and continue on the Stark businesses, so while most kids were learning their ABC's and about love and friendship, Tony was a living, breathing robot with a computer for a brain, and he learned about mechanics and opportunity cost.

Boy, did he learn about mechanics and opportunity cost. Tony knew the Ironman suit better than anyone did, and even if some solder in the army studied _his_ suit for the next eighty decades, Tony would still know it better. He knew how to best use it, how to upgrade it, how to repair it, but most importantly, Tony knew when to use it, and when to keep it hidden away.

The US government wanted to make thousands of the Ironman suits, to make them the ultimate weapon to use in combat, but how stupid was that? The US ended WWII by dropping the atom bomb, and what happened next? Everyone raced to make their own bombs, and then everyone raced to make deterrents for those bombs and now the world was a at precarious stand still, constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop, and Tony would not allow that shoe to be his Ironman suit.

No, the suit was only to be used for the biggies, the guys who had the capabilities of destroying the world, and Tony was the only one who he trusted to know that, to understand the mechanics and the opportunity costs that his dad had taught him from birth.

So sure, Rogers could call him selfish all he wanted, saying that Tony was only fighting for himself, but it was hardly Tony's fault that the big bads that he had run into at that point had all been interested in him, now could he? And wasn't Rogers paying attention? Because Tony was pretty sure that he had put everything in his life on hold to go and help him and the other rag-tag gang of heroes to save the world.

"What am I?"

Steve Rogers could take his idealistic hero and pretty words and shove them up his down home American ass, Tony Stark was a hero.

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So yeah, tell me what you think, please! And, just FYI, I don't run this by a beta, and I'm too impatient to post to ever edit seriously, so if there are mistakes you see, you're quite welcome to let me know or just ignore them or what have you.

Anyway, seriously, I'd love to know what you all thought about this little one-shot!

-Jaklyn


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